GlobalSign Blog

15 Mar 2018

The Many Ways Online Security Affects Corporate Data

Last year was a flagship year for corporate data breaches. Companies big and small, and even institutions renowned for having great security, all fell to the hands of determined hackers. A recent study revealed that over 58% of companies in APAC prefer not to take precautions and instead adopt a ‘detect and respond’ approach. People have been sleeping on the idea of cybersecurity for years, but it’s only recently that every company has started to realize the inflexible relationship between online security and data. Allow this article to convince you further.

The Right to Privacy

It’s the duty of companies to protect the privacy of their clients. It doesn’t matter what industry your company is part of, the importance of privacy should always be treated as gospel. This also goes to your employees’ data as well. Accessing all these data shouldn’t be easy for unauthorized personnel and the public in general. Here now comes the role of online security—to keep your corporate data of both your clients and employees private and protected.

Crime and Fraud Prevention

Today’s generation of cyber criminals have updated their tactics to bring down major companies. Not only are they after an organization’s downfall, they also want their sensitive data to be used for different fraudulent schemes. Online security helps in preventing these probabilities from ever happening. Companies are expected to keep up with them by making improvements to their online security, no matter how small those improvements are. Letting these criminals roam is never an option.

Resource Protection

A weak online security can also affect your company’s resources, mainly your computers and mobile devices. If one of your employees got infected by a dangerous malware for merely clicking the wrong link, it’s only a matter of time before every device in your network is infected. Worst case scenario is that all your computers and servers will be destroyed, rendering all of your hard work useless. So in order to protect corporate data, you also have to protect the devices where your data is stored.

Integrity and Reliability

Study the companies who got breached in the past. What do you think is their reputation after they failed to protect their corporate data? They lost customers, profit, investors, and most importantly, public trust. A well implemented online security system boosts your image as a responsible and trustworthy entity. This assures your current patrons that they are in good hands while attracting more clients and investors.

Importance of Implementing Online Security

Consider the infamous case of Equifax as a cautionary tale. After one of the biggest credit company in the US was hacked that led to the exposure of over 140 million accounts, investigations found out that the whole fiasco could’ve been avoided by patching a vulnerability in a simple software. By failing to focus on cybersecurity, Equifax failed to preserve the privacy of all its clients and its reputation as a public-trusted financial institution. Unsurprisingly, this scandal resulted to the inevitable downfall of Equifax.

It’s a good thing that most companies in APAC have increased their budget on cybersecurity, but that shouldn’t end there. Organizations looking to improve their public trust should adopt advanced security solutions such as two-factor authentication, anti-ransomware system, and biometric devices. A simple security product in a company’s website is a good first step towards achieving this.

Companies should also focus on educating their employees on online security while also teaching their clients on how to have a safe online transaction with their respective brands. Together with implementing industry’s best practices for online security, failures like the Equifax breach will be a thing of the past.

Online security is a must in today’s interconnected environment, that’s why it is important to keep up with the fast-evolving internet world. If you want to learn more about enforcing online security for your company, head down to our official website.

GlobalSign respects your right to privacy. This privacy policy has been developed to inform you about the privacy practices followed by GlobalSign in connection with its websites, products and services. This privacy policy does not apply to GlobalSign services offered by or through our partners, resellers or other third parties, or other third party services or websites, and we encourage you to read the privacy policies of those parties.

This privacy policy will inform you about what data is collected, how we use such data, where data is processed, how you may opt out of your data being used, the security provisions around storing your data and how to correct, update or delete your data.

1. Data Controller

The data controller for personal data collected within the EU is GMO GlobalSign, Ltd., having its registered offices at Springfield House, Sandling Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 2LP, United Kingdom. All questions or requests regarding the processing of data may be addressed to: dpo@globalsign.com.

2. Collection of Personal Information

We collect information from you when you (i) place an order for a GlobalSign digital certificate product or other product or service, (ii) scan your servers for digital certificates using our Certificate Inventory Tool (CIT), (iii) apply for access to our managed service platforms, (iv) subscribe to our newsletter, (v) use our online chat service, (vi) download a white paper, (vii) register for a webinar, (viii) respond to a survey, (ix) fill out a form for pre/post sales assistance, (x) open a support ticket, or (xi) your use of social media.

GlobalSign is a Certification Authority and trusted third party. To fulfill requests for digital certificates or other products or services, you may be asked to enter your name, email address, physical address, phone number, credit card information and/or organizational details or other personal information.

- Relationship information that helps us do business with you, such as the types of products and services that may interest you, contact and product preferences, languages, marketing preferences and demographic data.

- Transactional information about how you interact with us, including purchases, inquiries, customer account information, billing and credit card information, organizational details, transaction and correspondence history, and information about how you use and interact with our website.

We may develop and acquire additional information about you using third-party (public and private) data sources such as third party databases and government agencies, as well as your browsing and purchasing history in order to process orders for certificates and to improve our services.

GlobalSign treats personal information as confidential, except for the information included in an issued digital certificate. Such information may be verified using third party commercial and government resources, and as such, is deemed to be public information.

3. Purpose of Processing

Your personal data will be used for the purposes specified below:

3.1 To process applications for GlobalSign products and services

Your information is used to provide our products and services and order processing as well as to conduct business transactions such as billing.

The email address you provide for order processing may be used to send you renewal notices for your expiring digital certificate.

3.4 To send service updates

In addition, subject to your consent where required, we may send you new service updates, security updates, related product or service information, and status updates on maintenance windows or service availability.

3.5 To tell you about our products and services

Subject to your consent where required, we may send you periodic company newsletters, information about our products and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of other GlobalSign products and services, your attendance at GlobalSign sponsored marketing events such as webinars, your requests for information about similar products and services, or your sharing of data with social media sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook.

4. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

We will process your data for the purpose of performance of our contract with you or the legitimate interest of GlobalSign, which are our usual business activities. In other cases, we will request your consent for the processing of the personal data you may submit.

Your refusal to provide personal data to us for certain products and services may hinder us from fulfilling your order for those products or services. Also, if you deny or withdraw your consent to use personal data or opt out of receiving information about GlobalSign products and services this may result in you not being made aware of renewal notices, periodic company newsletters, new service updates, security updates, related product or service information, and status updates on maintenance windows or service availability. See Section 10 below for how to withdraw your consent.

5. Use of Cookies and web beacons

The GlobalSign Certificate Center (GCC) uses cookies to enable the fulfillment of services. Cookies may be used when you log into the GCC, purchase products or use certain GCC functions.

In addition, like most online businesses, GlobalSign uses cookies and web beacons on our websites and through marketing related emails to gather and analyze some personal data such as the visitor's IP address, browser type, ISP, referring page, operating system, date/time and basic geographical information.

We use cookies and web beacons to compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can gauge the effectiveness of our communications and offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business.

First time visitors may choose to not have any activity monitoring cookies set in their browser. We use an opt-out identification cookie to tag these users as having made this decision. Those cookies that pertain to site performance, experience improvement and marketing are programmed not to execute when an opt-out cookie is present in a visitor's browser. Opt-out cookies persist until a visitor clears their browser cookies, or until their expiration one year after the set date. A visitor is required to opt out again after one year in order to disable any activity monitoring cookies.

6. Use of application logs for diagnostics or to gather statistical information

Our servers automatically record information ("Application Log Data") created by your use of our services. Application Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device and application IDs, search terms, and cookie information. We use this information to diagnose and improve our services. Except as stated in section 8 (Data Retention), we will either delete the Application Log Data or remove any account identifiers, such as your username, full IP address, or email address, after 12 months.

7. Sharing of Information and Transfers of Data

We do not sell or trade your personal information to outside parties.

Within GlobalSign: GlobalSign is a global organization with business processes and technical systems in various countries. As such, we may share information about you within our group company and transfer it to countries in the world where we do business in connection with the uses identified in section 3 above and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. In cases where your personal data is transferred to countries that do not provide an adequate level of protection according to the European Commission ('adequacy decision'), we ensure your data is protected by entering into agreements containing standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission with each of our group companies. A copy of these agreements may be obtained by contacting us as outlined in section 15 below.

Third Parties: We may also transfer your personal data to trusted third parties and our partners in order to serve purposes that are specified in section 3 above. GlobalSign uses a third party to process credit card payments and provides credit card numbers and identifying financial data directly to the third party credit card processor.

In circumstances where data is shared with such third parties, they are required to comply with confidentiality terms included in our data processing agreements. This prohibits such third parties from selling, trading, using, marketing or otherwise distributing GlobalSign customer data.

As Required by Law: We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law or protect our rights, property, or safety.

It is our policy to notify customers of requests for their data from law enforcement unless we are prohibited from doing so by statute or court order. Law enforcement officials who believe that notification would jeopardize an investigation should obtain an appropriate court order or other process that specifically precludes member notification, such as an order issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §2705(b).

Mergers & Acquisitions: We may also disclose your personal information to third parties who may take over the operation of our site or who may purchase any or all of our assets, including your personal information. We will contact you using the details you provide if there is any change in the person controlling your information.

8. International Transfers

The third parties, subsidiaries and affiliates to which your personal information can be disclosed may be located throughout the world. Therefore, information may be sent to countries having different privacy protection standards than your country of residence. In such cases, we take measures to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection, which includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses to protect your personal information.

9. Data retention

The personal information we collect is retained for no longer than necessary to fulfil the stated purposes in section 2 above or for a period specifically required by law or regulation that GlobalSign is obligated to follow.

To meet public CA audit requirements as detailed in the GlobalSign Certification Practice Statement, personal data used to fulfill verification of certain types of digital certificate applications will be retained for a minimum of 10 years depending on the class of product or service and may be retained in either a physical or electronic format. Please refer to the GlobalSign Certification Practice Statement for full details.

After the retention period is over, GlobalSign securely disposes or anonymizes your personal information in order to prevent loss, theft, misuse, or unauthorized access.

10. Opting out; withdrawing consent

If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.

Renewal notices may be cancelled on a per digital certificate basis by logging into your GlobalSign Certificate Center (GCC) account and disabling renewal notices.

Email preferences for CIT related/collected information can be updated and changed within CIT.

You are responsible for providing GlobalSign with true, accurate, current and complete personal information. Also, you are responsible to maintain and promptly update the information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete.

You have the right to access and modify your personal data stored on GlobalSign systems. You can exercise your rights by contacting us in writing. We will require you to provide identification in order to verify the authenticity as the data subject. We will make reasonable efforts to respond to and process your request as required by law.

To the extent of applicable law, you may have the right to request erasure of your personal information, restriction of processing as it applies to you, object to processing and the right to data portability. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or if we have reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we have the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future services.

12. How we protect your information

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

After a transaction, your transaction-related information will be kept on file to meet audit requirements and facilitate renewals. We do not retain any credit card details.

13. Relevant laws

GlobalSign commits itself to protect the personal information submitted by applicants and subscribers for its public certification services. GlobalSign declares to fully respect all rights established and laid out in European Union and Member States' laws and regulations:

- European Directive 95/46 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and as replaced by Regulation EU 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (the EU General Data Protection Regulation); and

- Provisions of the GlobalSign CPS.

14. Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we make material changes to our privacy policy, we will inform customers by emailing a notice of the availability of a new version with a link to the new version.

15. Contact Us

If you have any inquires, or questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

We use the data you submit only for purposes identified in section 3 of this privacy policy.

You have the right to review your personal data that GlobalSign holds and check it for accuracy.

You have the right to correct data in the case that errors may be found in our records.

You have the right to request that any of your personal data be erased. i.e. right to be forgotten.

You have the right to obtain and reuse use your personal data for your own purposes

You have the right to request that GlobalSign restrict the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data.

14. Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we make material changes to our privacy policy, we will inform customers by emailing a notice of the availability of a new version with a link to the new version.

15. Contact Us

If you have any inquires, or questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

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GlobalSign is the leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions enabling businesses, large enterprises, cloud service providers and IoT innovators around the world to secure online communications, manage millions of verified digital identities and automate authentication and encryption. Its high-scale Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and identity solutions support the billions of services, devices, people and things comprising the Internet of Everything (IoE).